(March 11, 2015 at 2:40 am)TimOneill Wrote: ...I was thinking about the TF:
Vermes' reconstruction seems pretty likely to me:
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man . . . For he was one who performed paradoxical deeds and was the teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews [and many Greeks?]. He was [called] the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him . . . And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
Assume Josephus actually described Jesus as: "a wise man . . . For he was one who performed paradoxical deeds and was the teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly."
Wouldn't this be evidence against the theory that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet or a revolutionary? This description would seem to support the theory that Jesus was a Jewish teacher, Jewish holy man, or Cynic philosopher IMO.